Eating Worms
by pfchristine
Summary: When you can't find a way to talk through your problems, you might just need to eat worms and laugh. This one shot was written for a challenge on the USA Board. Bobby and Alex - friendship and partnership only.


**A/N:** This one shot takes place sometimes toward the end of Season 7... maybe just before Vanishing Act. Please let me know what you think!

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Juggling two large pieces of birthday cake, Alex Eames walked toward the picnic table where her partner sat, heaped awkwardly on the cramped bench. For the better part of the morning, he'd had a dozen squealing three and four year olds racing in circles around him in the yard. With each lap, they'd flung their little bodies at him, completely confident that he'd catch them every time and give them a quick swing through the air before setting them on their feet to start all over again. The poor guy must be exhausted.

"Alright, you monkeys. Time for ice cream. Give 'Uncle' Bobby a break so he can eat his cake."

Bobby shot Eames a grateful look, but any thanks were drowned out by the cheers of screaming preschoolers, charging en masse toward the mother with the ice cream scooper.

"Thanks for letting me drag you along to this Bobby. I think if I showed up to the house one more time without you, my nephew would have slammed the door in my face. I owe you one."

Goren flashed her one of his elusive, self-deprecating smiles, simultaneously deflecting her gratitude and denying that she owed him a thing, or that he was particularly loved by the boy she'd given birth to, but didn't raise. Alex shook her head. If she said something he'd only argue his own lack of importance. Or worse, he wouldn't argue but reiterate his grim, internal monologue within the confines of his own head. Now if that didn't sound like a Goren psych summary, she didn't know what did.

Why did it have to be so hard? Sure, they'd had more downs than ups in the last year or so, but whatever anger had flared up in her had subsided. Mostly. Yet somehow they had slipped into this place of not talking. Not that they'd ever been big talkers, but it was different now. They used to be on the same wave length and didn't need the conversation to confirm it. Now they skipped it because they already knew everything the other was going to say anyway and it wasn't worth going over it again. Maybe they were both just too stubborn, but it was hard to see the situation improving by running over the same old ground.

Instead, she kept biting her tongue and he stayed all turned in on himself, and the idea that this was just how it was going to be from now on left her feeling hollow and depressed. It wasn't what she wanted but she didn't know how to change it. She'd hoped today would help. What she'd said about her nephew demanding his presence today was true, but that wasn't the only reason she'd asked him to this birthday party. It was also a last ditch attempt to see if she could get him to drop his guard and connect with her again.

Actually, she knew she couldn't get through his guard, no adult could when he was like this. But kids… little kids could do it every time. Sure enough, it'd taken the miniature heathens about five minutes to turn him into their own personal jungle gym, and he'd smiled more than he had in the past six months combined. But the minute the kids ran off, he was gone again, lost under that heavy mantle of guilt and distraction she'd been staring at for months. It made Alex want to kick something.

Scooping up a forkful of icing and popping it in her mouth, she tried to shrug off her moody thoughts. It was a beautiful day, and brooding was not going to get her anywhere. Giving herself a mental shake, she turned her head sideways, determined to at least fill some of the space between them with light conversation.

At the sight of him, Alex had to stifle a laugh. A perfect picture of Goren-ness, he held a huge forkful of chocolate cake in front of his face, examining the jiggling, bright yellow worm that dangled from it. That was comical enough, but expression on his face was priceless. It was exactly the same intense focus he employed when examining a gruesome piece of evidence at a crime scene. At her little cough, he looked at her quizzically.

"They're gummy worms. They are supposed to be crawling through the cake." She shrugged. "Boys"

Alex could not have predicted what happened next if someone had offered her a million dollars and given her a year to figure it out. To her astonishment, Bobby looked her straight in the eye, quirked one eyebrow, opened wide and stuffed the entire mountain of cake on his fork into his mouth and… _slurped_ the worm in after it.

For a few long seconds she just stared at him, her mouth literally hanging open. When it finally hit her, the laughter shook her so hard she nearly fell off the bench. Gripping her side with one hand and the picnic table with the other, great big belly laughs gushed completely out of proportion and out of control at the sight of Bobby, 6'4 and 280 pounds of pure "boy", laughing back at her just as hard. On and on, their laughter tumbled and rolled until tears streamed over her aching cheeks. She couldn't have stemmed this tide if she'd wanted to.

It took a while, but slowly they came back to reality, wiping their eyes and gasping for air. Alex probably knew his face better than she did her own, but watching him, she felt as though she were seeing him for the first time in months. His ears were beet red and his face wasn't far behind. His eyes were squinted and crinkled at the corners, and his barrel chest still convulsed with aftershocks of their mutual laughing jag. But it was his smile that held her transfixed… as wide as the Grand Canyon and as clear and open as the perfect blue sky overhead.

Gripped by a sudden, fierce desire to see this afternoon last as long as possible, Alex glanced around, scrambling for a way to draw it out. She jumped on the first possibility that came to mind. "You know, after cake my sister and a couple of the other mom's are going to round up this mob and take them all up to the zoo. Everyone would love it if you tagged along…"

Before he could answer, her nephew ran up behind Bobby and made a flying leap at him. The child must have been eating his strawberry ice cream with his hands, because his little fingers were almost completely coated with its melted remains. Before she could react, the little boy landed on her partner's back, hands flying around his idol's neck to bury themselves in his beard, smearing sticky pink goo everywhere.

Bobby let out a small grunt at the impact, but his grin never dimmed. "You know, I think I may have seen enough monkeys for one day, thank you very much." But there was a laugh in his voice as he got to his feet for one last round as the preschooler's pony. He paused and glanced over his shoulder, reaching down to give her arm a squeeze. "What do you say we… catch a movie or something instead."

That was when she knew. It was going to be all right. Alex let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Getting to her feet, she started clearing paper cups and plates in an effort to cover a surge of emotion she didn't care to analyze. "You're on, partner." Her voice sounded a bit more gruff to her ears than she strictly meant it to be. "But I get to pick the movie. No subtitles."


End file.
